I picked up two movies from the library to watch as DJ is away and I can use his video machine. The first one I watched was called The Beach and starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
It has a beautiful girl and a beautiful beach. It is about a community of travelers hidden on a remote Thai beach, but, like all utopian communities, it fails due to the dark side of human nature, and the exigencies of survival. It is pretty but not very intense or very deep or even that entertaining.

The other movie was Une Conte d’Hiver. This is a typical French film that is 99 percent conversation and most of that about love. The protagoniste is a lovely young woman who has an affair one summer on the coast of France with a man she falls in love with but, after the vacation, loses touch with. Later she bears his child but is unable to find him having mistakenly given him the wrong address. Five years later she is involved with two other men whom she tells outright that she still loves and hopes to find the father of her child, but that, since she has not much hope of doing so, is agreeable to taking up with one or the other of them. She actually rejects them both while simultaneously carrying on with them both. This movie deals in a unique way with sex before marriage and living together, not so much by condemning them but by revealing the flaw inherent in such relationships; you are giving yourself, for the sake the immediate, to someone who does not love you and will not ever love you. I am speaking of the men here who put up with her maddening indecision and rejection closely coupled with affection. In the end she is re-united with her lover and cries tears of joy. This movie was somewhat dull, the female character was lovely, sexy and maddening, the men pathetique.

In an attempt to forestall another car bombing -- Friday's was the third in less than a month -- U.S. forces will begin patrolling the grounds of the Imam Ali shrine

"go close that barn door, they've taken the horses."

We went into this war with our eyes wide open and our heads up our ass

Expecting rain there were not many people at the beach. I went at noon and walked a ways in both directions. Seagulls and sandpipers among the stones. High tide, hot sun. Waved to CS in parking lot, back to house,talked to S,. went to look at a small repair job, Scott off to Boston with his Mom. Later, reluctant dinner with the group.

Red Star Rising

No big crowds at the beach after sunset. Just a few scattered groups of people, most of them with an eye on the red planet coming up out of the sea. Today it is its closest to us in almost sixty thousand years. The mosquitos were out too.

Dympna Moore cancelled the hearing tomorrow because of its proximity to the pretrial hearing. So, I’m off the hook for the moment.

Dirty Laundry

"Faites votre deposition, " repeta le Roi en colere; "ou bien je vous fais executer, que vous soyez trouble ou non!"

This weekend I need to prepare to argue against Dympna Moore in regards to my divorce from Liz.
She has filed a motion for :
1) Counsel fees of $2,500.00 as Defendant is without funds.
2) Temporary legal custody of Scott, temporary physical custody of Scott,
3) Temporary child support
4) That I be ordered to pay reasonable, uninsured medical and dental expenses of Liz and Scott
5) That I pay the defendant a reasonable amount of spousal support.

There are several other items that seem to be irrelevant to an argument.

Before I go to court on Thursday, I need to:
1) list, here on this page, all possible arguments against the proposed orders.
2) Outline a story, the story of this marriage so that it becomes a focus for the judge to make his decision.
3) Construct an outline of the most pertinent arguments
4) Write out in full sentences and in orderly, speakable paragraphs each argument in such a way that it could be read aloud in the court as my answer to Ms Moore’s motions.
5) Read it aloud.
6) Pray


I have 5 days to do this.

First thoughts

1)

My wife’s attorney indicated to me that she is taking this case on a pro bono basis and that she would even write the agreement for no fee if I agreed to her demands. If I did not agree, then I she said she would file a motion for attorney’s fees. Because she has indicated she is doing this pro bono my wife will be represented whether or not I pay her attorney’s fees.

If I could have afforded a lawyer I would have been divorced 10 years ago when the court ordered us to proceed directly to a pre-trial hearing. We were scheduled for the hearing but the court dropped the date and never gave us a new date. An attorney would not have let tbat happen.

$2,500. Would be a hardship for me to pay, I would have to put most of it onto credit cards or fall that much further behind on my taxes.

The money could better be spent elsewhere, medical insurance, Liz’s teeth, Scott’s college etc.

2)

Scott has lived with me for ten years, why suddenly change his household now?
Scott participates in the swim team, the wind ensemble, the jazz band, takes and gives trumpet lessons and all his classes are right next door to where we live now.
Scott has given me no indication that he wants to live with his mother although he knows he is free to do so whenever he chooses.

4)

Scott has always had had access to medical care; he has been to the doctor whenever he needed to, he has had regular dental check ups all his life, he has had an orthodontist and an optometrist.
I know I could not have afforded health insurance for myself or Scott over the last ten years. My wife has Mass Health coverage.

My Story

We have not lived together for over ten years.
Scott has lived with me for that entire ten years.
We do not have the best living situation, but he preferred to live with me then and he prefers to live with me now.
I have been supporting my wife faithfully for that entire time although it has been a burden to me and Scott. We have not been able to afford health insurance or a house of our own and some years I was not always able to pay my taxes on time but I always faithfully paid my wife every month and always helped her out whenever I could however I could.

Sunday

Pensaran vuestras mercedes ahora que es poco trabajo hinchar un perro?
Cervantes

I went up to see my Dad and reinforce his back deck which was about to collapse. He had a book with pictures of old Watertown. One of them was of Lewandos dye workers around 1900. His German born grandfather was probably in that picture. There was also a picture of The Saint Patrick's High School class of 1922. His brother Tom was in that picture. There were many old buildings that I do not remember that he remembers such as the Grant building in Saltonstall park and the old town hall at the corner of Church and Main street. He also remembers some of the oldest Civil War Veterans marching in the Memorial Day parades, probably around 1930.

A Donde Vamos?

Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.
Last night my hands were thrust into the mystery of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the sweetness of pomegranates
And among the scents of the harvest above my queen’s neck,
the harvest of black hair;
And my teeth played with the golden skin of her two ears.
Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.
--From the Afghan of Muhamadji, 19th century

I took the above excerpt from a beautiful little book I found at the library called Love Songs of Asia, published by Knopf in 1946.


I believe that life has a purpose, but at times it seems that life has no purpose.

Next week I will have to appear before a judge where my long estranged wife and her lawyer will try to extract from me a laundry list of financial commitments and also to take away custody from me of my son. I believe I have offered her a fair settlement but she will not settle for anything less than all she can get.

Wanted: Woman to walk the beach with me, must be in good physical condition, age not important. Intellectual, physical, sexual vitality desired; nothing but walking and talking required.

Puppies

The young woman at the checkout counter at Grand Union was not wearing a bra. What a wonderful, thrilling thing to see the outline of her breasts and nipples through her thin cotton pullover.

Heaven and Earth

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges thatJesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
( 1John 4, 1-3).

I have finished reading Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. Krakauer tells good stories and he uses the stories to probe some interesting philisophical questions about society and human nature. This book tells simultaneously the history of the Mormon church and several sub-stories that are actually spinoffs from the main story.

I had little knowledge of the Mormon history other than that they settled Utah so it was fascinating to find out the details of their founding by Joseph Smith, their emigration to Missouri and then to Illinois where they built the town of Nauvoo, and then to Utah while it was still a part of Mexico and to find out of the persecution, hardships they endured and the violent practices and bizarre beliefs that they have. We learn of Joseph Smith, his avenging angel Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young, the massacre of the Fancher wagon train by Mormons, and the murder of two of Powell’s men possibley by Mormons. And we are brought into the modern stories of polygamous families, the kidnapping of Pamela Smart, and, central to the book, the horrific murder of Brenda Lafferty and her baby by her two brother’s in law who believed that God had commanded them to kill her.

I believe that there is a spiritual dynamic at work and that there is behind Mormonism a spiritual, anti-christian intelligence, the spirit of the Anti-Christ. These religions arise in response to the spread of vital christianity into a region; they are characterized by a stringent moral code, a firm belief in salvation by works, a propensity to justify violence to defend the faith, and a propensity for their men in leadership to justify the taking of teenage brides. In other words, full opportunity is given for the flesh for the rulers while strict control is exercised over the faithful. I believe Islam is like this, having arisen in response to the early spread of christianity. Another example is the Heaven and Earth Society which arose in the 1850s in China, it also had the outward trappings of christianity, a strict moral code and a propensity for violence which resulted in one of the worst wars in human history, the Hong Xiuquan rebellion.

The book takes a hard look at fundamentalism, the nature of faith and the function and nature of religion in society. The author makes no conclusions of his own but the implication of the book is that religion in general demands conformity and can lead to tragedy. At the end of the book he makes a remark that indicates that he has not found the answers to the big questions of life and he suspects he will not know them in this life, but he does acknowledge yearning to know that he is loved by his creator. I pray that he will come to know that he is.

Dog Days

Era ese tiempo de la canicula, cuando el aire de agosto sopla caliente, envenenado por el olor podrido de las saponarias. (Juan Rolfo)

My son and Mike worked with me today. S cut his hand on a piece of copper. It is still hot, even this evening I sit typing, not so uncomfortable but noticeably uncool.

We went to dinner with my sister Janice, her husband Jim, their daughter Kerry and Kerry’s friend Jessie. My sister comes down to the trailor park in Brant Rock every year and we usually go out to dinner at the Compass Rose, which we did last night. It was Kerry’s eleventh birthday. Jim is very sick, his liver is failing and he probably will not be approved for a transplant which is his only hope to live. A few months ago he almost died in the hospital, he did die in the sense that only the machines kept him alive that night. He told me flat out he did not have much time to live, I didn’t know what to say to him; he asked me to pray for him, that’s not like him. I felt that anything I could say would be pathetically insignificant. He wants to live to see his daughter grow up. My first thought was to pray that he would have peace, because I did not see much hope that he can find a liver. But on second thought I know that, if it was me, I would want people to pray that I would live.

Kerry and her friend Jessie were playing gymnastics on the grass by the trailer, we went back there after dinner and watched the moon and Mars rise over the ocean; I always have more fun when there are kids around. Scotty has always got on well with Jim and usually goes to stay with them in the summer.

La Gloria y El Misterio

Y por mi, a fin de que al abrir mi boca me sea dada palabra para dar a conocer con denuedo el misterio del evangelio, por el cual soy embajador en cadenas; que con denuedo hable de el, como debo hablar. Efesios 5:19-20

I was caught in another drenching downpour on the way home today. When the rain broke, I took my bike out to the beach. It was low tide and I walked along the sand flats in the icy water. The sun set about 7:30; Fall is not upon us yet but I know it will be soon. I walked the bike back across the bridge, it was too nice to hurry home.

AC Daycee

“Voila enfin ma tete libre,” dit Alice.

It was a hot and humid day, certainly not the worst I’ve ever worked in but uncomfortable nevertheless.

After work I again biked to the beach and walked. The breeze at dusk this time of year is a little touch of heaven. There are so many young women jogging to and from and at the beach. I remember when I was in my twenties and used to walk the beach or run or bike and I distinctly remember there were no women doing the same. I would have died to have a woman who did the things I liked to do. Now things have completely changed. Women are running and biking and kayaking in groups and alone everywhere I go and they far outnumber the men doing the same thing. I can only speculate on why: in part it may be fear of being fat but I suspect it is the great increase in girls doing sports, almost all the teenage girls I know are involved in some type of sport. But where are the men?

On The Seventh Day

"Comment savez vous que je suis folle?" dit Alice.
"Vous devez l'etre", dit le Chat, "sans cela vous ne seriez pas venue ici."

It is a beautiful summer morning, the wind is showing the silver side of the poplar leaves; rain coming. I don't feel like going to church this morning. I am reading of the Lafferty brothers "lead by the Lord" to murder their sister in law and her baby. "test the spirits to see whether they be of God", dicelo El Sabidor. Wouldn't it be wonderful to know what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will, but our sinful nature blurs our understanding. Is there any hope then to find his righteousness?

Imagine That

Now, it is easy to show that Darwinism, one of the pillars of modern biology, is nothing but a kind of cult, a cult religion. I am not exaggerating. It has no scientific validity whatsoever. Darwin's so-called theory of evolution is based on absurdly irrational propositions, which did not come from scientific observations, but were artificially introduced from the outside, for political-ideological reasons (Tennenbaum).

I went to the beach as usual after work and stood on the wooden footpath that crosses over the dunes and looked down the green ribbon of grass and rose bushes, the blades and flowers catching the light from the setting sun. It was like a little swatch of rolling prairie one hundred feet wide and four miles long and it is hardly ever looked at. On the beach, the little waves left lines on the sand like threads each thread the limit of the waves life, the threads overlap and form patterns, again hardly ever looked at. Nature is not a work of chance forces acting on blind matter, nature is a work of imagination; it is the work of a creative mind, a creator God. Even the form of a single tree, never noticed in the forest or by the roadside, is a work of art and imagination.

“Le fait est que vous ne savez pas grand’chose,” dit la Duchesse.

Another Day

I had a conversation with Mike today. He is going to Wentworth nights to get his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He has a professor who expounds to the class on the death of Christianity, claiming that science, in particular the science of evolution, has made Christianity obsolete. It is amazing how little the educated understand.

I went to the beach after work and walked with the sandpipers.

I have begun to read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, about Mormon fundamentalism. I really enjoyed his book Into the Wild, and I am interested in the sociology of religion. I am a Christian, in other words I believe in Jesus Christ as personal Lord, Savior, Friend, Creator, God; the man from in Nazareth of Galilee, born 2000 years ago, crucified, raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God the Father. Sometimes, within my own church, I cannot discern the work of the Spirit of God from the work of the spirit of the world. God willing I will write a book about this, perhaps looking at the schism in the Baptist church over slavery.

I keep asking God for a girlfriend, but perhaps it’s not Him but me. Perhaps I need to give myself permission to let Liz go and have what so many other men have, a woman I can be intimate with.

Another Saturday Night

The bare, brown midriff of the house cleaner and the warm sunshine awoke in me a long absent sensuality. I was in the screened-in area off the living room; she was inside. She must have been in her mid thirties, but she had the body of a twenty year old. She wore a loose shirt cut short to show her belly and tight dungaree shorts. Her legs and stomach were tanned brown. We spoke briefly before she left. I stayed working in the shade by the pool.

Last night I was alone as S went to his mother’s. I watched a video, Le Genou de Claire. It is about a man who toys with the idea of having an affair with a teenage girl who he knows is attracted to him. He later becomes fascinated with the girl’s step sister Claire; especially with a particular part of her anatomy, her knee. The knee, I guess, is just sensuous enough to express the type of attraction he has for her, and just removed enough from being sexual so he is not portrayed as a sexual predator. He does end up taking the opportunity to warmly caress her knee when he is caught alone with her in a gazebo in the pouring rain, but after that there is nothing more. The movie is interesting because of its unique characters, especially the women; the plot however is thin.